Impreza spawns a sports car

The Prodrive P2, the first high-performance road car David Richards’ fast-moving rally and race car development business has built from the ground up, will make its world debut at the Autosport International show in the NEC on January 12.

The project, revealed exclusively in Autocar in May, is ‘a technology demonstrator’, designed to show what Prodrive’s various divisions — from electronics and aerodynamics to suspension development — can do.

The P2 uses a heavily altered cabin and scuttle from the Japan-only Subaru R1 micro-car, mated to all-new chassis structures and suspension to house a 2.0-litre turbocharged flat-four and four-wheel-drive transmission from the Impreza WRX.

Weight will be around 1100kg, giving the car a power-to-weight ratio approaching 300bhp per tonne. The car’s shape and proportions are the work of McLaren F1 designer Peter Stevens, formed in composite under the close eye of Richards himself.

The P2 will show off two key Prodrive creations — a sophisticated traction and cornering stability system called ATD, plus a road-going anti-lag system for high-performance road-going turbo engines which provides instant power without the unacceptable noise and driveability compromises of the systems in rally cars.

Richards insists the P2 is not just a show car, even if it may not be built for production. ‘The idea is to show what Prodrive can do’, he says, ‘and to demonstrate various pieces of new technology. If it can do those things, it will have fulfilled its function.’